Ups and Downs
by CrimsonGear
Summary: Set during season three - Nikola and John are always butting heads, but nothing would ever come of it right? Written for Chartreuseian in exchange for a Progeny chapter :


Written for Chartreuseian from out twitter convo involving a book she was reading and her thought 'I think the pretty scientist with the moustache will die at the hands of Spring Heeled Jack.' Sorry it's late Char, I ended up working more than I usually do. That and Castiel's cuteness is awfully distracting.

Disclaimer: I don't own Sanctuary, the characters or the following Serbian swears. I found them through google.

* * *

"Prčim ti tri silosa žita zno po zrno a na svakom zrnu četiri isukrsta na karte igraju! I don't care if you're one of the greatest technological discoveries ever! I'm going to fucking dismantle you and feed you to a bloody Nubbin, drkadzijo!" Nikola roared at one of the holographic city's taller buildings. Panting heavily, Nikola continued to glower at the tower. "I know you can hear me you harlot - come on! DO SOMETHING!"

"Come now old boy, does yelling ever really work?" John drawled from the library doorway. He'd been quietly snickering to himself at Tesla's antics for a while now - apparently the man still had yet to get anywhere with the map. Some genius.

Nikola sighed and turned to face John, "What do you want, John? I'm busy."

"So I see. Code switching must be quite the task, bakarou."

"U picku materinu," Nikola hissed under his breath, twisting on his heel and hoping to ignore the ex-mass murderer behind him.

"Pardon?" John said, his voice filled with tease.

"I told you to fuck off," Nikola snapped.

"Didn't sound like it - sounded like something a little... necrophilic," John drawled, striding towards Nikola.

"Listen, _Jacky_. I am not in the mood. So piss off and find something more suited to your intellectual capacity - like crochet," Nikola sneered, aching as a little voice in his mind reminded him that he was not only mortal, but that flexing his hands like he was, was not going to encourage vampire claws to grow.

John snarled and made to lunge at Nikola but stopped as the sound of heels echoed on the floor.

"What? Worried about what Helen will say if you throttle me?" Nikola goaded, though he was secretly glad. He wasn't overly confident he could take John as a human.

"Nikola I - John? What are you doing in here?" Helen asked as she looked up from the book she'd been about to read aloud from.

"I thought I'd try giving Nikki here a little help," John answered.

Nikola shot John a look, "Don't call me 'Nikki', Jack."

"Boys, enough!" Helen cried before John could retort, effectively silencing both of them. "We have work to do, so enough of this childish stupidity."

While John had the decency to look ashamed, Nikola grinned, almost as though he took it as a compliment (or was simply happy John was being berated also) and turned back to the building he'd been cursing at. "So what'd you find, Helen?"

"You're unbelievable, you know that?" John said, glancing at Helen before stepping behind Nikola and hissing in his ear, "If you really did love her, you would have the capacity to think about something other than your own amusement and oh I don't know - feel guilty when you upset her."

"Oh yes, because you're Mr. Perfect," Nikola retorted without looking at John, instead tapping on a window of a building. "You're not guilty about the Whitechapel murders and they had her ready to shoot you-"

Before Nikola could go any further, John's hand had shot up and found Nikola's throat. Continuing momentum, John flung Nikola backward into a shorter, awkwardly shaped building that dug into Nikola's back most uncomfortably.

"John!" barked Helen, more out of instinct than anything else. "What the hell are you doing?"

"A-uhk" the pressure around his neck increased and Nikola kicked out in John's direction, catching the older man in the side with enough force to make John release him. Coughing and backing away, Nikola rubbed his neck, panting slightly.

"The cocky little bastard deserved it," John snarled.

"John! Enough!" Helen cried, putting herself between the two. Over the past few days working with Nikola on the map, Helen had found herself noticing all the reasons she had kept Nikola around during their Oxford days and why she helped him, even when he acted like an ass, time and again.

"Leave, John. Or I'll make you," Helen said firmly.

"What, so the magnetic moron can continue to fail at getting somewhere with the map?" John retorted.

"You think you can do better?" Nikola interjected.

"Oh I know so," John replied.

By now both men had sidestepped Helen and were attempting to outstare the other, their faces only inches apart.

"Bloody children, the both of you," Helen muttered shaking her head, hands raised in surrender as she left the two to squabble in that male-dominance-show-turned-mating-ritual John and Nikola liked to perform whenever they were in the same room.

* * *

"See? You can't get it working either," Nikola said smugly from where he stood leaning against one of Helen's bookcases.

"Oh shut up, at least I don't randomly press things," John shot back, glaring over his shoulder at Nikola before turning back to one of the holographic buildings.

"'Randomly pressing things' got that hover car working," Nikola pointed out, picking up the odd contraption and throwing it toward a building. The car-like structure then shifted its wheels so the alloys were facing the ground and safely directed itself away from the building.

John's face contorted into a snarl. "Cute," he sneered. "Besides, since when were you into solving problems with pragmatism?"

"I told a holographic building that because of how angry it was making me I was going to anally violate three silos of wheat - I didn't even say that to Edison when he ripped me off $50,000! So yes, when one gets to a point they will jab, kick and scream until something works their way," Nikola said with raised eyebrows, giving John a look that clearly meant 'are you stupid?'.

John turned away, clenching his fists and trying not to growl. Reminding himself that Helen would probably kill him for attacking Nikola now the annoyance was human was proving more futile by the second. He never could stand the audacious foreigner. The energy being inside of him seemed to agree if the sudden urge to see Nikola sprawled on the ground bloody was anything to go by.

"Do you think if I 'jab, scream and kick' long enough you'll go away? Permanently perhaps?" John asked, slowly circling Nikola, turning the map off as he went. They would just get in the way.

Nikola had realised there was something wrong. John's voice was deeper, shoulders more hunched, a glint in his eyes Nikola more commonly associated with John when he going to Rip. Swallowing around a lump in his throat, Nikola focused on the task at hand - making sure _Jack_ didn't kill him.

"John, why don't you go get a whiskey or something? I hear that walking carpet of Helen's has some homemade stuff - got quite the kick apparently," Nikola tried, noting John's hand twitch. _Going for his knife - means the EM shield is still working,_ Nikola mentally noted.

Twitching a finger, Nikola forced the knife through John's coat, apparently something the other man had anticipated as John drew a second and charged forward. Nikola flexed his magnetic abilities once more and brought the first knife handle first toward himself, able to swing and block John's blow just in time.

Henry couldn't do much more than stare at the security footage he was getting from the library as an arch of blood flew through the air, lead by a flash of metal.

"Shit!" Henry scrambled over to the intercom.

_"Doc, hit the library. Druitt and Tesla are going at it - physically."_

* * *

When Helen finally entered the room, it was to find the men she loved covered in cuts, blades locked, her precious library bathed in splashes of blood from the two men.

"What an earth are you two doing? Stop!" she cried, eyes wide. Helen wasn't sure what to do, usually she'd shoot Nikola and threaten John off, but now... Now Nikola was human and whatever damage she did would be lasting. Neither of them was clearly listening to her and both seemed quite determined to kill the other.

It was then that she noticed Nikola wasn't trying to attack - he was completely on the defensive, even the odd times when he pushed John back. John swung for Nikola's waist but was blocked easily, with Nikola adding in a kick, causing John to stumble back. It was as though they hadn't noticed she'd even come in.

John charged forward again, well aware that Nikola wouldn't make the first move out of self-preservation. Swinging high, his blade once again caught with Nikola's - just how he wanted it. Using his free hand, John withdrew yet another knife and stabbed.

Nikola, who had been blocking the first blade with both hands on his own (too weak without his vampire strength to block the overhead blow without doing so) and so was completely open to the attack. He wouldn't have even registered the blade had pierced him if the pain hadn't been there.

John backed off and fled, leaving the knife in Nikola, jutting out just below his ribcage. Nikola dropped his own knife and fell to the floor. The pain was like a spark setting his torso on fire as he struggled to breathe properly, keeling onto his side.

"NIKOLA!" even though Helen had screamed his name, his senses had dulled the sound to almost a whisper. His lung had collapsed, pierced for certain as he was able to draw less and less air the more he tried. His vision was blurring but he could easily pick out the growing pool of blood around him. There was too much... Maybe Jack had struck gold and got his heart too. Nikola wasn't sure, there was too much pain to distinguish. A pain which doubled as someone pulled the knife from him.

"Argh!"

Nikola's back arched upward, closer to Helen's body as she held him, her cardigan balled up, replacing the knife in a futile attempt to stem the blood flow. "Nikola, stay with me. We'll get you to the infirmary - you'll be alright." Goddamnit, why hadn't she done something? She could have stopped this from ever happening. Now her closest friend was dying in her lap and all she could do was give him sweet nothings as tears spilled down her cheeks.

"S-seems I'm ... A-always ... Making... You ... Cr-ry," the ex-vampire managed weakly, his breathing laboured.

"What're you talking about?" Helen said, wiping at her face with the heel of her hand.

"Wanna... See a trick?" Nikola asked instead, smiling best he could, though it looked more of a grimace.

"Nikola... What?" Helen shook her head in confusion.

Willing his body to co-operate with him, Nikola raised his arm shakily, until his hand was a little to the side of Helen's head.

"Not the... Big bang I was... Hoping... To go out with," he waved his empty hand before Helen's face before moving it back to Helen's ear and returning to her view with a golden coin. "But still... Kinda stylish, huh?" he chuckled weakly.

"Meant... What I said... I-in Rome... Love... Y," Nikola didn't get the chance to finish, the light fading from his eyes as his heart finally stopped, though the cocky smirk he'd managed just before remained.

"Nikola..." Helen stared at the lifeless body brokenly, tears falling freely, with Helen only blinking when her vision was obscured by more tears welling up. She felt as though something had been torn from her, and it hurt so much more than Ashley or James... Maybe it was because Nikola was never meant to be the one that died, certainly not before she did. He was an immortal vampire - they didn't expire from simple knife wounds. They shrugged their shoulders and gave her that damned smirk and made a prude comment before laughing and running off before she shot them. but that was before the DeVamper.

Suddenly, Helen's sorrow turned to rage and she found herself pounding at Nikola's dead chest. "Don't you dare die on me you SELFISH BARSTARD! Get your arse back here!" Helen stopped her assault and laid against Nikola's chest, hugging his shoulders "... I need you, Nikola... I love you..." she whispered into his ear, hoping that wherever the man was now, that he would hear her.

* * *

Three days later Helen came down to the Morgue with the intention of saying goodbye to Nikola privately, before the funeral she had organised. Only there was a problem: Nikola wasn't in his coffin.

"So... You love me, I hear?"

He also wasn't dead.

Nikola chuckled at Helen's look of complete shock. Yes, he was quite surprised too. But then, that happens when you wake up in a horribly cheap suit. _And a coffin,_ he supposed as an afterthought, hopping off the wooden casement and striding toward Helen with his arms wide.

"Do I at least get a hug?"

"OW!" Nikola stared at Helen, clutching his cheek. "You slapped me!"

"I'm going to do more than that," she said, grabbing him by his hair and smashing their lips together. "Don't you dare do that to me again," she said when they parted.

"I don't plan on DeVamping again so that shouldn't be a problem," he answered smugly, his vampiric side coming out toward the end. "I love my genetics."


End file.
